Hy Zaret: My Sisterand I
In1941, during her exile in London, Queen Wilhemina of the Netherlands was payingefforts to find a 12-year-old Dutch boy, Dirk van der Heide, who had escaped toBritish, and then emigrated to the United States with his 9-year-old sister,Keetje, had written a short book My Sister and I. The book was translatedinto English from Dutch by Mrs. Antoon Deventer before its first publication inNew York by Harcourt, Brace in January 1941. In June, the book wasrepublished in London by Faber and Faber.
The bookstarts off with Dirk talking to the readers about why he is writing his diary.He says “I don’t like to think about the war, but the captain says people oughtto know what it’s really like so that they won’t let it happen anymore”. Heclaims not to remember everything that happened when the Nazis came but he isgoing to try to recall the events.
Dirkis traveling with his sister Keetje to America, escaping the war. They wereleaving Holland because their father is fighting in the war, and their motherwas killed in a bombing. He continues on to describe what happened when hefirst heard about the German invasion. He remembers waking up in the nighthearing explosions and people shouting under his window. He remembers howchaotic things were before and after the bombings. He then talks about hispositive experiences with the British.
On theBillboard charts, a song named “My Sister and I” was in thenumber 7 position for the top songs of 1941. The song was recorded in theUnited States by Jimmy Dorsey and his Orchestra with a vocal by Bob Eberly, andthe song was written by Hy Zaret, based on the book of Dirk, the song beginswith:
Mysister and I remember still,
Atulip garden by an old Dutch mill,
Andthe home that was all our own until…
Butwe don’t talk about that
Interestingly,Hy Zaret was overwhelmingly welcomed many years later because of his mostpopular hit Unchained Melody.
It iswidely accepted that the Author of My Sister and I was faked, manyquestion that the book was a “shrewd British propaganda maneuver”. According toDr. Paul Fussel, the Professor of English Literature at the University ofPennsylvania, the real author of the book is StanleyPreston Young who at one time taught English at Williams College. He wrote thestory when he was working as an editor at Harcourt, Brace.
December 8, 1941, The U.S. declares waron Japan and on December11, 1941, The U.S. responds by declaring war on Germany and Italy, formallyentering the war in both the European and Pacific theaters.